Protecting children from religious abuse: Janet speaks at Austin Oasis

Protecting children from religious abuse

Are you a survivor of religious child abuse or neglect? Which children are at risk today? These are questions Janet Heimlich answers these questions during this enlightening Sunday Gathering at Oasis Austin that took place on Jan. 21, 2018. Janet Heimlich is an award-winning journalist, the author of Breaking Their Will: Shedding Light on Religious Child Maltreatment, and the founder of the nonprofit the Child-Friendly Faith Project. Janet discusses this issue and her recent involvement in publicizing decades of abuse at Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch in the Texas panhandle.

The wolf will live with the lamb. The leopard will lie down with the goat. The calf and the lion and the yearling together, and a little child will lead them. (Isaiah 11:6)

I do not wear clerical garb at all, because I see clericalism as one of the most prominent and important causes for this entire problem—the attitude that the clergy are somehow removed and above other Catholics and that we have to be protected at all costs.

—Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, canon lawyer and former papal ambassador

He told me that, because he was a man of God and he represented Christ in the flesh, it would be spiritual and natural for him to take care of me sexually. . . . But even though I felt that it was wrong, afterwards I thought, because [he] said he was a man of God and he brought up those things from the Bible, somehow, it was okay, or holy.

—Lindsay Tornambe, child sexual abuse survivor

My name is Jane Eyre. I was born in 1820, a harsh time of change in England. Money and position seemed all that mattered. Charity was a cold and disagreeable word. Religion too often wore a mask of bigotry and cruelty.

—Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

[W]e must acknowledge that our religious communities have not fully upheld their
obligations to protect our children from violence. Through omission, denial and silence,
we have at times tolerated, perpetuated and ignored the reality of violence against
children in homes, families, institutions and communities, and not actively confronted
the suffering that this violence causes. Even as we have not fully lived up to our
responsibilities in this regard, we believe that religious communities must be part
of the solution to eradicating violence against children, and we commit ourselves
to take leadership in our religious communities and the broader society.